


Tug and Pull

by minecrafters



Series: Ross and Oliver [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Flashbacks, Haircuts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oliver being Oliver, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 16:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19009564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minecrafters/pseuds/minecrafters
Summary: Oliver doesn't give very good haircuts.





	Tug and Pull

**Author's Note:**

> ill just sit here and be sad

Ross reached around his shoulder and prodded at the gum that stuck to his hair.

"Eugh. Goddammit..." Ross made a disgusted noise. "James really has to keep this place cleaner, teach the idiots around here not to stick their gum on the walls. Seriously, I don't have time for this!" Oliver hummed something out in reply as he stared at the back of Ross' head. God forbid James actually taking care of his own dive bar, but even Oliver would admit the traction Ross' band brings around is hard to keep up with. He doubts the bar owner knows or cares about some college kids sticking their bubble gum to the concrete walls in the back, pre-show, as they leave to go 'mosh.' Was he using that right? Oliver didn't even have the chance to recall Ross' punk rock rambling before he caught a gasp in his throat. Ross flipped out a pocket knife and reached around to the back of his head.

"Wh- No, Wait!" Oliver scrambled over to him. Ross eyed back at him questioningly from the mirror. Oliver stared at the other man's reflection, which was cruddy, and duct taped together. It wasn't even usable for anyone other than Ross' exact height when he sat in front of it. 

Oliver flushed a bit at his outburst, though, he said "You don't have to chop it all off...I mean...I know a way to get it out."

"I'm not going to freeze my head, if that's what you're suggesting." Ross chuckled at his...friend? Friend. "I'll get a proper cut later but I'm not walking out with this-" he gestured at the gum, "parasite on me."

"No. You, um..." Oliver bit the inside of his cheek and rubbed somewhat anxiously at his arm. "You look nice, with your hair longer, you shouldn't be cutting it over something like gum. I can get it out with some oil or lotion, and a comb." He got quieter at the last part, "If you want."

Ross hummed, and with a small smile he turned to look up at Oliver. "You're lucky I think I look good with longer hair too, or I would’ve teased you to hell and back for that."

"Yeah, no. You're still going to tease me for it." Oliver smiled back.

"Oh yeah, I sure as hell am. I need you to go gentle on me though, so I'm not right now. Would a brush work? There's a bottle of lotion in my bag."

"Brush is fine." Oliver's words were clipped as he questioned himself at Ross' choice with words. Gentle with him? What? He said he looked nice, not Good as in... He needs to ask Alex if Ross is always like that. His face felt like he had a sunburn and his thoughts are always going somewhere else around the guitarist. Maybe it's just him. As in, just in his head. Oliver silently pleaded with himself to shut down all thought as he went to rummage through Ross' backpack.

"How do you know this stuff about gum and hair? Is it a common torture practice between boyfriends and girlfriends to put sticky stuff in each other’s hair?" Ross asked with a shit-eating grin on his face. He definitely has to be like this around other people.

Oliver stood up and groaned as his knees popped and walked towards him with the lotion bottle in his hand. "If I got spunk in Jule's hair I would be mysteriously gone the next day."

"Ewww, straight sex jokes." Ross laughed. "You're something else. Please get over here before this shit dries." 

Oliver tipped Ross' head forward and applied generous amounts of lotion to the gum in his hair. Ross recoiled from the coldness of it and made another noise of disgust as he had to experience lotion, of all things, being rubbed all over the lower back of his head. He hummed though, as Oliver started to massage it in rhythmic circles. "This is some mom-type advice. Where'd you learn it? You don’t seem like the type to get sticky stuff in his hair often."

Oliver went apathetic as he recalled memories from his childhood. He tried to force out a smile at that, a low blow at his sex and social life. A joke. He knew what Ross said was a joke. He knows Ross didn't expect an answer. Or a serious one, at that. But Oliver couldn't stop himself from speaking, he liked his own voice too much.

"When I was 6, I would go out in the garden and hide in a sap tree when I got scolded by my mother. Which was often...I was a total smart ass." Oliver stared at his own fingers combing through Ross' hair.

"No offense, but that's very easy to imagine." He could hear Ross smile.

"None taken. I tried to be good, but my type of good wasn't up to her standards, I guess." Oliver knew he should end it there, but he couldn't. "I was in trouble for...I don't know. Something. I must've done something wrong. While I was there, I got covered in huge clumps of sap. All over me, in my hair, on my hands, face. Same thing as gum, I guess. Close enough." Oliver rambled further. "When she saw me, she insisted for me to be-- for me to be bathed." Oliver's hands went clammy as he brought up the brush to Ross' hair. He felt stones in his stomach as he recalled all of it at once. It was ridiculous, breaking out in a sweat about it over twenty years later.

"Filthy, petulant child!" Her voice was shrill, educated, but with a thick foreign accent. She called him that over and over, 'petulant.' Ingrained it into Oliver's head that he will always be an over-emotional, inconsiderate, problem child. Her long, manicured nails dug into his arm as he was dragged into one of the bathrooms. Always long and claw-like. Looking back on it now, she was so young, she was more of a full-time baby sitter than a mature mother. Oliver was pleading with her though, that he was sorry, that he didn't mean to get sap all over him. She scrubbed him raw in a frigid, porcelain tub. He started crying harder, gasping for air when she would dunk his head under the freezing water. She was dunking him longer than she should've.

Oliver went still after brushing Ross' hair a couple times. Ross was squeezing his wrist softly. "It's not stuck for good, is it? Am I actually going to have to cut it?" He questioned Oliver, due to him stopping.

"No- it's- it's fine. It's working? Sorry." Oliver resumed. He tugged on Ross' hair too hard.

"Ow!"

Oliver felt like puking as he further recalled the aftermath. 

He was shivering and crying still. She told him to stand in front of the mirror and wait. She didn't give him a towel. Clumps of sap were still in his hair and was covering his eyes. The water and stickiness made it look even longer than it usually was. His mother came back and tugged at a sap-covered chunk of his hair forcefully. He recoiled in pain.

"Quiet!" She swatted at his face. "This is what happens when you play in the garden, no?"

Oliver watched her chop off his hair in the bathroom mirror. It wasn't even just the sap now; she was giving him a half-assed haircut. He stared back at himself, face red and wet from tears. Tears that were still falling. He didn't know it at the time, but he was hyperventilating. She would continue to tug and pull at his hair, and continued the beration, even to herself under her breath. He was desperately trying to cover himself, for warmth, and because he was old enough to be ashamed by his nakedness but not old enough to know why. Oliver's teeth chattered. He looked down at his own hair on the floor when she was done.

"Much better. You were starting to look like a little girl with all that mop." He didn't like going near the tree after that.

Oliver started as he felt Ross' hand squeeze his wrist again, concerned. Was he shaking? His face reddened, this time from embarrassment. Ross said something but he didn't hear it. It's fine. Oliver bit his tongue. Why was he getting so worked up over nothing? Ross touching him, Ross talking to him. He didn't want to talk about it. There was nothing to talk about. Or touch about. That came out wrong, he's glad he's not speaking right now. Oliver zoned in on the spot of hair with the gum and stopped brushing. Ross' hair was wavy and was starting to reach down to the nape of his neck. Oliver's stomach couldn't help but clench at what his mother said to him, way back.

"You look like a girl." Oliver blurted out. It felt like ice poured down his shirt when he realized what he said. Why is he like this. What a wonderful thing for a straight man to say to a gay man.

"Do I now?" Ross took it as a joke.

"...Maybe you should cut it." Oliver suggested. He was right in a way, Ross' hair started looking more uneven the longer he looked at it.

"Uh, alright." Ross look thoroughly confused for a moment before he decided to go with it. "Think you could help a bit?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing." Oliver's hands still shook.


End file.
